Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. One example routing solution to LLN challenges is a protocol called Routing Protocol for LLNs or “RPL,” which is a distance vector routing protocol that builds a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG, or simply DAG) in addition to a set of features to bound the control traffic, support local (and slow) repair, etc. The RPL architecture provides a flexible method by which each node performs DODAG discovery, construction, and maintenance.
Currently, network stability of LLNs can be problematic, particularly considering the dynamic nature of routing metrics in LLNs. Though metric values can be smoothed out such that new metrics are only advertised, and/or such that routes are only changed, when their values exceed some pre-configured thresholds, such thresholds are implementation specific and it is usually difficult to determine which threshold values should be used. Indeed, the routing metric setting for a small and stable LLN requiring accurate metrics greatly differs from that of a large scale network with unstable links where path optimality is not as critical of a requirement.